Bec had moved past est and the people and life she had in Seattle and was back living in Detroit and working for EDS when she wrote me this undated letter. (Well, OK, March 11, but no year.) This came out of my big box of letters without an envelope, either. I’m going to put it at 1987, since she says I must be “going through a lot … with the wedding,” which must have been my wedding to Julie on May 9 that year.

She describes at length her relationship with her boyfriend, John, which she gives an outside survival chance of six months, because she wanted to stay focused on her career. If I’m not mistaken, this is the same John that she married and remains married to. I’m glad she’s not an oncologist.

I always enjoyed Bec’s warm and free association sense of humor. She was always very supportive of and genuine with me. We never stopped telling each other, “I love you,” even after we had long since stopped being romantically linked.

On the other hand, isn’t she a little bit sassy, acknowledging my impending wedding and then asking me for a date? (And then giving only her work number to call.)

Dad was dying in Kentucky when Rebecca wrote to me from the brick duplex we had just moved into on Ann Street in East Lansing in July 1981. I was down in Kentucky saying goodbye to Dad, although we didn’t know exactly when he would go. He had a hospital bed set up in the family room and 24-hour nursing care by this point. He would go in and out of consciousness. I don’t remember really any meaningful conversations with him at this point of his illness. I remember of course being overwhelmingly sad and sorry for Mom. She was putting on the brave face. I also remember it was stiflingly hot in the Ohio River Valley.

I don’t remember the girl in the shoe store that Bec mentions not once, but twice. I guess she was a little unnerved about something I had said that I thought I might do while I was down there. I’m sure I was kidding the both of us, as having fun would have been the farthest idea from my mind with Dad dwindling down to nothing.

It’s interesting and a little sad that Bec said nothing about my Dad in her letter. She wasn’t an insensitive person by any means. I think she was maybe a little freaked out or perhaps I didn’t explain the graveness of his condition to her. It’s also likely that I myself was in denial about it, and so maybe I didn’t talk about it realistically or openly with her. She was very young, only 20.

Not too young to work a naughty picture in between the lines though…. 🙂